China's surveillance platform tracks thousands of foreigners in Zhangjiakou

Cyber‑security researcher and journalist Marc Hofer, based in Amsterdam, uncovered an unsecured police dashboard called the Dynamic Control Platform for Foreign Personnel in the northern Chinese city of Zhangjiakou, a former 2022 Winter Olympics venue. The system listed more than 700 foreign residents and roughly 12,000 individual records, including fugitives, people from Hong Kong and Taiwan, and over 300 foreign journalists—some of whom had never visited the city. Each entry contained personal details such as passport number, phone number, birthdate, gender, marital status, address, occupation, religion and even camera sightings at traffic intersections, markets, malls or a mosque. Hofer saw his own photograph and data, remarking, “Whoever entered that data had access to real information.” The platform also showed recent logins from Zhangjiakou police stations and other cities. Investigations linked the system to Beijing‑based surveillance firm Origin Dynamic, which filed a 2023 patent for a similar “information interface for non‑Chinese citizens.” The site was taken offline by May. The find illustrates the breadth of China’s domestic monitoring, now extending to foreigners living or working in the country.